?: I don't have to ask. You brought them here. You're trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?

Jacob: You are wrong.

?: Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt, it always ends the same.

Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that, it's just progress.

?: Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?

Jacob: Yes.

?: One of these days, sooner or later, I'm going to find a loophole, my friend.

Jacob: Well, when you do, I'll be right here.

?: Always nice talking to you, Jacob.

Jacob: Always nice talking to you too.

If LOST has done anything for us over the last five years, it's caused us to ask many, many questions. It's answered a lot of them, but there are still lots that remain unanswered. Will we find answers to all of them? Certainly not. Am I hoping that we can at least get closure on some of the more important issues? Certainly. I think I would like to use this post to talk about where I think the show may be heading, some questions I think will be answered, and maybe some questions that probably won't be answered (Like if we will ever find out the deal with the Hurley Bird is. I know, I'm sure a bunch of you completely forgot it ever existed. Sorry).

Before I forget, my good friend Mr. Julius Goat has written three parts in his 25-part short novel chronicling every single thing he could possibly know (and many things he certainly doesn't know) about the subject of LOST. Given his procrastinating nature, I'm not sure if he will be able to finish the remaining 22 parts before the season premiere. The first three parts are here, here, and here. (Warning: You may need to block off several hours to get through these posts)

(Spoiler note: I may reference the episode title of the season premiere in my post. That's it, that's as much as I know about the upcoming season, so if you're completely set on not knowing ANYTHING about next season, you may want to avert your eyes. But, if you're okay with knowing the title of the premiere, please continue. End of disclaimer)

Trying to figure out where LOST is headed, and what we can expect in Season 6 is a tricky task. The show is ever-evolving, and always seems to be giving the audience a new perspective on things. In Season 1, it was a very narrow point of view; we had a plane crash, a bunch of survivors, trying to figure out where they are, what's going on, and how they can get off the island. In the meantime, we have character flashbacks that tell us more about the lives that these survivors have led. Then we learn about the hatch, and the Others, as we transition into Season 2, which is spent learning about the Dharma Initiative, the Others, and the history of the island. In Season 3, the picture is opened up even more, as we learn about where the Others live, what their place is on the island, what happened to the Dharma Initiative, and we are also introduced to the idea of getting off the island. Season 4, the picture is expanded further, as we saw our survivors get off the island, and thanks to the beauty of the flash forward, we saw what leaving meant. In Season 5, our survivors returned to the island, we learned more about Jacob and his place in the history of the island, we learned about an impending war, and we also learned even more about the history of Dharma. Our perspective is constantly expanding, with a bigger and bigger picture being introduced to us each season.

So what does that mean for this season? The producers have mentioned Season 6 being similar to Season 1, although they never said in what way. I think in the same way that Season 1 was very focused on the survivors, and their stories, so to will Season 6. I think we will learn about why the ended up on the island, why they were chosen, and how their story fits into the history of the island. Some of that was hinted at with Jacob's flashbacks during the Season 5 finale, and I believe Jacob's conversation with his Nemesis not only related to the Black Rock, but also Oceanic's crash many, many years later.

However, I'm prepared for anything. After all, we still have our big cliffhanger that needs resolution. We have a hydrogen bomb that went off. We have one camp of people that truly believe the bomb needed to go off to bring change to the island. By setting off the bomb, they prevent The Incident, which means the button doesn't need to be pushed every 108 minutes, which means Desmond will never accidentally cause Oceanic 815 to crash, which means it will land in LAX as scheduled on September 22, 2004. Then, in the other camp, we have the people that believe the bomb going off was, in fact, The Incident. The bomb was always supposed to go off, you can't change the past, what happened happened, etc. The plane will crash, and everything will play out as planned. One of these ideas is correct. One is not. How will the aftermath of The Incident affect the legacy of the survivors?

In addition, we have a pretty big variable in Charles Widmore (and Eloise Hawking for that matter). We seem to have a good idea on where everyone's allegiances lay except for those two. It would seem that Charles and Ben are on opposing sides. But what does that mean for everyone else. We always thought of Ben as being pro-Jacob, and clearly that's no longer the case. We do know that Ilana's group is pro-Jacob, and from our flashbacks with Miles we saw her group trying to recruit him away from Naomi and the freighter, which we believe to be a group backed by Charles, so does that mean Charles has sided with the Nemesis? But then would that mean Charles and Ben are now on the same side? And how does Eloise Hawking fit? She used to be on the island, was an Other, was involved with Charles, knows of the island's existence, helped get the Oceanic 6 back to the island. Where do her allegiances lie? Much of our exposure to the two of them has been in the past, in the 1950s and 1970s as of late, so they're easy to forget about in present day time. But I believe they are very important characters that will definitely have their say in how things play out in Season 6.

Some questions I'm looking forward to being answered:

-John Locke. He's dead. He's not dead. What's the deal? This is one of the biggest questions out there, fortunately it's one we'll get some answers to. We saw his dead body on the beach. However, we also saw him in some form talking to Jacob at the foot of the statue. What does this mean for the future of John Locke? And on a similar note, what does this tell us about Jacob's Nemesis?

-Is Jacob dead? As I said after the finale, I have a hard time with the idea that Ilana made this trip all the way to the island to find Jacob, only to have him killed minutes before she gets there. Not to mention Jacob didn't really put up much of a fight when the Nemesis showed up with Ben. I don't know if this is all part of Jacob's plan, but there's more to it than that. Jacob's not just dead, and that's it.

-For me, one of the biggest things to come out of the Season 5 finale was the introduction of Jacob's Nemesis. Here we have a brand new character, that we see for only a few minutes, and yet he's the cause of lots and lots of speculation among LOST fans. Who is he? What's his relation to Jacob? What influence has he had on the show so far? Remember, we've been hearing about Jacob since Season 3, even though we've only seen him in one episode. So just because his Nemesis wasn't talked about in the last three seasons, that doesn't mean he wasn't around, wasn't involved.

My Season 3 rewatch was actually helpful in refreshing my memory on Jacob's cabin, and Ben's relationship with Jacob, and what all of this ultimately might mean. We know that Ben has never actually seen, or talked to Jacob, until he killed him. We know that this cabin exists, that Ben knows how to get to, and believes that Jacob is inside of it. Is it Jacob, though, actually inside? Someone in the cabin said to Locke "Help Me". In Season 5, whomever was in the cabin appears to have been released, as we saw the ring of ashes around the cabin was broken, and a note indicating the occupant of the cabin was headed towards the statue. We know that the Nemesis somehow occupied Locke's body, or is manifesting the appearance of Locke's body, and ultimately made its way to the statue to kill Jacob. So what we've got here, is the Nemesis, in the cabin that Ben refers to as "Jacob's" cabin, and somehow escapes from it and takes the form of John Locke to go and kill Jacob. This is all well and good except for one thing that I can't wrap my head around: If Ben has gone on leading the Others for all this time without ever meeting Jacob, without ever talking to Jacob, why does Jacob allow this? Where does Richard play into all of this? He seems to at least know Jacob, knows where he lives, but is he not able to talk to him either? Charles Widmore spoke of Jacob when Ben stole Alex from Rousseau. Did he actually speak to Jacob? If Ben was led astray, why did Jacob not right his path? Aren't the Others supposed to be living their lives according to the will of Jacob?

There are a lot of questions in regards to the relationship between the Others (specifically Ben), Jacob, and his Nemesis, that the finale brought out into the open, and I'm very curious to find out as many of these answers as they're willing to give us.

-What is the smoke monster? Related to this question is Christian, what is his purpose, is he real, is he just a manifestation of the smoke monster, who is he working for? We last saw him down by the donkey wheel with Locke, telling Locke that he had to move the island, and was a catalyst in John getting everyone to come back. However, it would seem that getting John to go back was something that Jacob's Nemesis wanted to happen. So does Christian work for the Nemesis? He said earlier in "Jacob's" cabin that he spoke for Jacob, but does he really? As for the smoke monster, we've seen it performing various tasks on the island. It seemingly has the ability to appear as other people (Yemi, Alex, Christian?, Rousseau's shipmates), but they seem to only be people on the island who are dead. Also, the bodies of those people seem to disappear when they are manifested by the Smoke Monster (Yemi's body was missing when Eko went back to the plane a second time, Christian's coffin was empty when Jack found it). We've also seen it judge people (Eko, Ben), as well as kill people (The pilot of Oceanic 815, the previously mentioned crewmembers of Rousseau's boat). But all that being said, we still don't really know where it came from, what it is, what its ultimate purpose is on the island.

-What about those numbers? I don't know how big of a deal I consider the numbers to be. Really, the one thing I want to know is how they ended up being recorded on the radio tower, since that led to Rousseau arriving on the island, and ultimately led to Hurley winning the lottery. Outside of that? I don't really care about their mysterious origin, or if they have any cosmic significance. I do think they will be addressed again, but I have a hunch that when they are addressed, a lot of people will be disappointed that they weren't more "special".

-What happened to the statue? I previously mentioned the apparent disconnect between Jacob and the Others. I do wonder if the destruction of the statue played any part in that. We really have no idea when the statue was destroyed, we just know it was whole some time in the past, and was not at the time of the plane crash. So there's a pretty wide range of time that encompasses when it may have been destroyed. My theory is that its destruction also marks the last time women were able to give birth on the island (Not really a unique theory since the statue is of Taweret, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility, so it only makes sense that the statue being destroyed signifies the ability to conceive and give birth also being destroyed), but I also wonder if it goes further, and since it was Jacob's apparent "home", that the statue being destroyed also had repercussions on his relationship with the natives, which is why someone like Ben never actually met Jacob.

-Who are Adam & Eve? It's been hinted that it's Rose & Bernard, but we really don't know for sure, and since Damon & Carlton have been saying all along that the reveal of Adam & Even had some significance tied behind it, this is certainly something that we will find out for sure by the time the show is over. I have no idea who it will be, to be honest. Maybe it's Nikki & Paulo. (Twist~!)

Some questions I'm not expecting answers to:

-What's the deal with Walt? Actually, I'm a little bit more optimistic about this than I was at the end of last season. I think Damon & Carlton were asked about this at Comic-Con, or somewhere, and they hinted at the possibility of being able to wrap up the story on Walt without having the character present. I take this to mean that someone would be able to give us the backstory on why he was considered so special, what the plans were for him, etc., and just leave it at that. I don't know if that will ever take place, but it was nice to hear that the idea hasn't been completely abandoned. As for Malcolm David Kelley, he's done. We're not seeing him again. His appearance last season when Locke was trying to go back to the island was put there solely so that the show could give us some closure on that story.

-What happened with the survivors the Others kidnapped? Why were they taken? Why did they integrate so well with the Others? I'd love to hear more about this. We saw Cindy twice in Season 3, outside the bear cages when Jack was in there, very calm, and accepting of her place with the Others (along with the kids), and later on, when Locke arrived, saying that they've "been waiting for him". So what's the deal? With the kids, I can at least understand them being taken on the basis that they can't have kids on the island, so they could be looking for ways to repopulate the group. Sadly, I don't expect this to ever be mentioned again.

-The food drops. Dharma has been exterminated, I would assume that everyone off the island is aware of this, and yet, we still had food drops land outside of the hatch. And it's never been talked about again. I would love to see something, anything that explains this, but I'm definitely not getting my hopes up.

Other random thoughts:

-Will Sun ever get to see her kid again? It still kills me that she just up and left her daughter in Korea to go back to the island, not knowing when (or if) she'd get back off to see her again.

-Is Claire dead? Actually, I could have thrown this in the first section of questions, but I'm certainly curious to know what exactly happened to Claire. She just randomly wandered off with her father, and we later saw her in "Jacob's" Cabin with Christian. So...is she dead? Can you die from nothing? I never bought the idea that she died when her house exploded in the barracks, that just doesn't make any sense to me. She was still walking around with Aaron after that, how does she just die and is walking around with as a ghost with her baby like nothing happened? I presume we'll see her at some point in time in Season 6, but I have no idea in what capacity. I'm hoping this gets brought up.

-Remember during the time flashes, when Juliet, Sawyer & co. took one of the outriggers they saw on the beach (when they found the Ajira water bottle), and were being shot at by a mysterious group of people in a second outrigger behind them? Anyone curious to know who was in that outrigger? Remember, Juliet shot one of them. I think we might still see this one played out. The Ajira water bottle was a give away that wherever that time flash was, it was in the future. As we saw in present day in Season 5, the Ajira flight landed on the other island, and Ilana's group took the outriggers over to the other island. So it's entirely possible that what we saw in that time flash hasn't yet happened in the present day storyline. I'm actually a little intrigued at the idea of this scene playing out fully next season, with a potential major character death taking place as a result of Juliet's shooting.

-What will ultimately be the fate of Desmond & Penny? Eloise told Desmond that the island wasn't done with him, she told Desmond that her and Penny were not meant to be together, try as he might. So what will Desmond's role be in the final season? We last saw him get shot by Ben and then beat the everloving hell out of him in retaliation, then he was at the hospital getting worked on, where Penny waited for him. Is that the last we'll see of them? I'd like to think not, but I'm also not really sure what direction they could go with them (Even logistically speaking with Sonya Walger having a new show to work on).

Alright, I think I've rambled on enough. I'm sure there are many things I've forgotten to mention, but that's to be expected. Can't wait for the season premiere! As always, thanks for reading.